Understanding
by LameBicycle98
Summary: Fenrir Greyback bites Hermione Granger. Now she is returning to learn about the beast he has made of her. HGFG Rare Pairing. Complete.


A/N: This was originally supposed to be three-four pages but it just kept going and going, much like the Energizer bunny but not nearly as pink. This is a one-shot, there will be no more. I plan to still write Fenrir/Hermione, but I am going to just continue in drabble/fanfic100 form since I have school starting again soon.

Thank you for reading. Please leave a review at the end.

Understanding

The first time he had seen her had been of little consequence.

She was just another child amongst the hordes of the blood-pumping, wheezing, sniveling little masses. She was just another howling child, trying to fight against the overpowering swarm of Death Eaters and live.

Not many had made it.

She did.

She was a small whelp, thin but inclined towards chubbiness - merely a consequence of exercising her mind rather than her body. Her hair was a mess, but it was always a mess. He thought perhaps the small shine on her lips had been gloss.

When he tasted it, it was salty. Tears. She had been crying.

So he bit her. No real reason. She was there, she was alive, and he couldn't resist.

He left her bleeding on the ground.

* * *

She came to him the second time.

When he asked her how she had found him he couldn't understand her answer. Perhaps it was his nails crushing her throat that caused her words to be jumbled. When she was released, she coughed that he had to teach her.

"Teach you what?"

"To understand what you did to me."

He should have slaughtered her then. It would have been such a simple action. She may have changed, grown stronger with enhanced senses and the beginnings of the eventual lust for blood all his kind had, but he was still the stronger. He understood his body. She was too new, too inexperienced. At eighteen, she had been forced into a second puberty.

He did not kill her. He walked away from her. She stared after him a long while, but by the time he looked behind she was gone.

* * *

The third time she came to him at night with the shadows.

He knew she was there. He could smell her. She smelled like books and curiosity and fear. It was a wooden and sour smell, and it did not mix well on his tongue.

She was leaning over him, her hair brushing against his face as she leaned into him. Intent and mesmerized, she seemed to be getting lost within her desire to know. To understand. To be able to break down the equation of him into variables, solve for x, and quickly move on.

But he was not x. Or y. or z. He was between and beyond. As would she as well, if she survived.

Seconds later it was he who was on top, pinning her down and growling low.

"Why have you come?"

"I want to understand."

He scoffed. His head turned and his eyes narrowed.

"Understand that I can rip your throat out and gorge on your blood without a second thought? That you've forfeited your life to me the first time you sought me out. This time you've only made it less work for me, idiot girl."

If she was frightened (and she was, it stung his nose) she did not show it. She grit her teeth and glared up at him.

"You will help me," she hissed.

"Why should I? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't tear your voice out, you little, frightened girl?"

"If you were going to kill me, you would have done it already."

It was a chance, and they both knew she was taking a large one. She was a victim to his whims at the moment, and she had no knowing of his nature that could even guess his reaction.

Lucky for her, curiosity won out.

He got up on his hind legs and stood. When she made to move he growled, so she sat back on her elbows and watched him suspiciously. He looked down at her, her disheveled hair sticking to the sweat on her forehead, her shirt torn and her jeans dirty. He snarled.

"Ask Lupin."

He turned from her and walked away. The sound of her hurried footsteps reached his ears. He stopped and waited, knowing that she would address him.

"Don't you think I already have?" she hissed. He could taste her fury. "Do you think I would come to you if I thought I had a better option?"

"What did he tell you?"

"I hardly see how that-"

He interrupted her, turning to face her. "What did he tell you, little girl?"

She crossed her arms across her chest and steeled herself. "He apologized and… and…"

"And what?" he growled.

"He cried," she said, offering a betrayal and lowering her eyes in guilt. "He can barely look at me, though we're the same now."

Fenrir clenched his hand, the long and dirty nails of his fingers cutting his palm. "He always was a fool to deny himself."

Hermione's nostrils flared, and it was obvious to him that she caught the smell of blood on his hand. Her eyes widened. She was too apparent. It made her weak.

It made him want to bite her again. His teeth granted strength to the lesser beings.

Like a demon. Like a god.

But he turned from her again. Her growl of frustration reached his ears, and he grinned at the sound.

"What about me?" she asked him. "If you don't help me I'll be denying myself as well. I don't know what I am anymore. I know who I used to be, but you changed everything." She pulled a shuddering breath, but did not cry. "Take some god damn responsibility."

The next moment she was up against the bark of a tree with the werewolf holding her by the throat and hissing into her eyes. Her heart sank and sped up at once and she wondered, not for the first time, if there was, perhaps, something wrong with her.

Something besides the dark beast resting beneath the surface of her weak, human skin.

In that moment she wanted him to do something ridiculous. She wanted him to stick his tongue in her mouth and her ear and her cunt without any discerning thought. She wanted him to claw her with those dirty nails and infect her all over again. She wanted his eyes on her breasts, his teeth on her teats, and his cock in every opening it could possibly fit.

She also wanted to piss herself.

He smirked.

"Go home, little girl," he growled.

Within seconds he was gone, leaving Hermione clutching her chest.

* * *

The fourth time she found him after a dark revel.

He had not been at fault, personally, but Voldemort was growing more twisted in his own mind as the weeks passed and Harry Potter was still out there doing heaven knows what. Resisting, it might be said, but when both sides relied on guerilla warfare it was hard to tell who was forcing and who was resisting. Particularly if you happened to be in the middle.

Voldemort cursed his followers right and left almost as bad as the muggle entertainment. Like much of the Dark Lord's reign the curses were sent out sporadically, only missing if you weren't quick enough to get out of the way. Fenrir had been hit with a wayward cruciatis that he had stepped into by accident. When Voldemort saw his error, the Dark Lord's lip curled. "Filthy dog," he spat. "Not anything like a man, are you?"

If Fenrir thought he had a hairs chance of succeeding, he would have done wonder-boy's job himself. As it was he knew he'd be killed the moment the wayward thought passed his mind, so instead he imagined the Dark Lord to be a boar, a massive, weighty, stinking boar with black tusks and dark red eyes that easily fell to the claws of the greater animal.

But now the boar was off plotting again, with his swine purring about him, leaving Fenrir to apparate and stumble back to his dwelling.

The curse had hit him directly in the chest. It was one of the worst places to be hit. It struck the heart, causing it to clench and beat at a pace so rapid the body could hardly contain it. Often the muscle would hemorrhage and burst. It was thought to be very painful.

Fenrir collapsed and clutched his chest, curling into himself. He didn't notice when the scent of a female suddenly floated in the air, nor did he notice her quiet gasp when she saw his current state.

"What happened to you?"

Fenrir was up on all fours with a snarl but his limbs could not uphold his weight. He collapsed, cursing the Dark Lord and the girl for their continued existence.

"Merlin," she breathed. "Just lay down. Hold on. Don't move. I'll be right back. Don't _move._"

He was unsure if the command was necessary. He didn't think he could move even if he wanted to. His body convulsed and shook on the forest floor.

A few moments later he felt a warm, wet cloth being wiped across his face.

"Just relax," the girl cooed. "You have to relax. It's the only thing that will help."

Easy for her to say. Every time he tried to uncurl his body a new sensation of tightening contracted in his chest. He felt if he was not clutching full body to his heart it would jump out of his chest.

He jumped when he felt her wand at his throat but he needn't have bothered. She whispered a spell, and a warm, soothing sensation ran through him. He felt better almost immediately. He looked at her in askance.

"It's a spell that helps to loosen up the muscles. We've been using it on cruciatis victims. That's what happened to you, isn't it?"

He grunted in the affirmative. Her brow furrowed.

"What did you do? Why did he curse you?"

"Why are you always asking for something?" he growled back at her, tentatively spreading his legs out as his heart slowed to a normal pace.

Hermione sat back, glaring. "That's a funny way of saying thank you," she sniffed.

"I did not ask for your help, girl."

"I've found that people rarely ask for help when they need it most. They're stubborn and thick, mostly."

With a long breath Fenrir sat up, looking curiously at the girl. He vaguely considered slashing her throat for insinuating that he was stupid, and imagined the blood running down his hand before he brought it to his mouth. She would taste sweet, he knew. All little girls tasted sweet.

"It was an accident," he said, instead of killing her.

"A what?"

"An accident. The Dark Lord is ambivalent towards who is on the receiving end of his wand. I stepped into it."

"You follow that… that loathsome, foul - "

"Have you registered yet?" he interrupted her.

"Pardon?"

"Registered. With the ministry."

"Oh. No. I was told by the… well I was told I shouldn't," she said quietly.

"You can say it, girl," said Fenrir. "The Order told you not to. It was wise of them."

Of course it was wise of them. Werewolf Registration was just as good as a veritable blacklisting. If you name appeared on that long list it meant you had limited (read: none) employment, denied a vote (animals were not considered animals) and had to somehow make enough money to be able to afford the expensive wolfsbane potion. If you could not, your family's vault at Gringott's would be seized unless the family publicly disowned the errant werewolf. Then, during full moons, many werewolves were rounded up in camps and kept in tied up during their change. Occasionally they would die from starvation or, more often, dehydration, as the excuse that it was too hard to put water and food in front of a volatile animal was used.

Hermione felt she ought to at least put up the semblance of a front. "I don't know anything about any Order."

"And I'm The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-An-Asshole. Cut the crap, girl. Your allegiance is hardly a secret," he said and crossed his hairy arms over his chest.

Hermione made to stand up. "I'm not telling you anything."

"Sit _down_," he growled. She settled back down on the forest floor with alacrity. "I don't care about the Order. Besides, if you were valuable in any way, they wouldn't have let you come out here."

"That's not true! That's not… not…" But it was, wasn't it? She could tell herself she was important, that she helped Harry time after time and saved his ass, which was true enough. But in the eyes of the world it was only Harry that mattered. She was only the scenery. Another witch saved by the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Hit a nerve, did I?" he flashed her a malicious smirk.

"What do you know, you mangy dog?"

Dog. A bleeding dog. Is that how everyone saw him? Just some slobbering house-pet that comes hither to his masters beckoning? But he was more than some dumb beast. He was an advanced animal, an evolved mind. He was the strengths of man and beast wrapped into one form. He was indomitable. He was the spirit of the wild forest in a flesh and blood body.

He was currently pinning a little girl to the forest floor once again.

"You ought to be careful with your words, girl. You never know who you're going to piss off."

It was different this time. She didn't look afraid. She didn't even smell afraid. If anything, she looked irritated.

"Get over the male posturing already. If you were going to kill me you would have done so already."

His face snarled into hers, and she felt a bit of spittle fly onto her cheeks.

"Maybe I was waiting until I was hungry before I finished you off. And, girl, I'm feeling mighty hungry at the moment."

"Hermione," she said.

He blinked at the somewhat non-sequitur.

"My name," she clarified. "You keep calling me girl. My name is Hermione."

"I don't make it a habit of knowing the names of my food."

"Maybe you should," she said impertinently, before a half-hysterical bark of laughter escaped her lips. Fenrir, confused, sat back on his haunches and stared at her. She raised herself to a sitting position and raised her hand to her face, the laughter still falling out from her lips.

"Did your mind crack?" he asked without any real concern. He'd never eaten the insane before. Maybe they tasted better.

"No, no. Well, maybe," she amended. "It's just that I never thought I'd be in some forest with a Death Eater werewolf, demanding that he use my name and teach me how to be a werewolf myself." She laughed again, however, it seemed bitter. "Really makes you reevaluate your life."

He snorted.

She sat up and looked at him calmly. "Will you help me?"

"Why should I?" he asked, sounding rather petulant for an adult animal. "Because you helped me?"

"No," she said quietly, not looking at him. "Because I need you to."

Fenrir leaned up against a tree, his gaze veiled. For a moment Hermione considered leaving as if the wolf-man had shut her out completely. But as she made to move she heard his gruff voice.

"What does it feel like?"

She stared at him. "What does what feel like?"

"When you changed," he began slowly, then eyed her critically. "Oh, you don't know, do you?" His grin was toothy, his canines pointed and harsh. "Let me guess," his voice was quiet and sharp. "They made you take the potion, didn't they? Just like Lupin." He purred the name, drawling the n, making it sound like a joke.

Hermione huffed. "It was for my safety-"

"And how did you feel?"

"What?" asked Hermione, surprised.

"How. Did. You. Feel?" He gave her a bored expression, but his feral eyes glinted.

Hermione closed her eyes. As she spoke, Fenrir quietly got on all fours and slowly, silently, padded in front of her.

"At first there was a pain in my stomach. Like cramps except… different. Gurgling cramps. Yes. Like that. And it spread across my whole body, and seemed to settle in my skin and it… it pushed my skin inward. It felt like an implosion that couldn't focus, like it was pulling in on my skin but it couldn't quite make it in, but only straw was holding it up from the abyss of my, of my organs, I guess. I was so, tired and so… so incomplete."

"What was missing from you?" whispered the wolf, almost in front of her now.

"My… energy? My mind was tired. I just… I think there was something more. I think I was missing-"

"Yes?" he said quietly, inching his face so close to the girls.

Hermione opened her eyes and gasped at his closeness. In shock she fell back onto her elbows, and the wolf took advantage of this opportunity to loom his body over hers, shadowing her, enveloping her, and staring, unblinking, into her eyes.

"What was missing?" he asked, growling when she cowered beneath him.

Hermione gulped a breath and tilted her shin. "My spirit. My spirit was missing."

Fenrir grunted approval before climbing off her and getting to his feet. "Good," he said decisively. "You recognize that." He closed his eyes and tilted his head, as if listening for something.

Hermione scrambled to her feet, brushing off her jeans as she stood.

Fenrir opened his eyes. "What is it you want to know?"

"To understand-"

Fenrir cut her off with an impatient flick of his arm. "Specifically."

"Oh, well." Hermione paused. "I was wondering if I could control myself when I changed. In my third year we learned that a werewolf does not recognize anyone except other werewolves."

"And why would you think it's any different from what you learned?"

"I don't know, not exactly. I have a hunch that it might be inaccurate since the book was sanctioned by the Ministry." Hermione's voice became bitter. "Which has a tendency to vary the truth, particularly when it comes to Magical Creatures."

Fenrir smirked. "What was your first clue?"

"_The Monster Book of Monsters_, actually." Hermione was unconsciously picking up a bossy tone. "It doesn't take much to charm a book to not be as nasty as that one was, particularly since the book is not technically a living creature. After researching I found out that the books are created with a vicious hunger instinct to eat whatever it pleases. Which means, of course, it's already indoctrinating children to fear and misunderstand anything that comes out of that class."

Fenrir looked pleased, but he did not speak.

"So is there?" asked Hermione.

"What?"

"A way to control the beast."

Fenrir made a noise at the back of his throat. "Are you an animagus?" he asked, seemingly at random.

Hermione was taken aback. "Er, no."

"That makes it harder," he muttered to himself.

"I can do it," she said stubbornly. "I'm top of my class and it isn't because I don't work for it. Whatever it is, I'm willing to do it."

Fenrir smiled. His sharp teeth made the visage something of a satiric big-bad-wolf. "Of course you are willing. The question is, what do I get for teaching you?"

Hermione glared. She hadn't considered payment. Actually, truth be told, she hadn't really planned any of this out beyond confronting the legendary werewolf about helping her. She hadn't really planned to succeed, and only his lack of having killed her in the past had given her the courage to continue hounding him.

"What do you want?" she asked carefully.

If anything, his smile grew wider. Hermione recoiled at the sight of it. "I can think of something I want from a supple young girl as yourself," he purred, taking a step towards her.

"You've got to be joking," said Hermione, her eyes wide in understanding. "Are you serious?"

"Not as you are now," he said, waving his hand to encompass and reject her current form in one long stroke. "I've had my fill of humans," he spat the last word. "But a willing bitch in heat? It's something I couldn't pass up."

"Willing?" squeaked the girl.

Fenrir growled. "That is what I said."

"I don't – Look, I've never done…" she made wild hand gestures. "This, any of this. Any of that."

"There's no better time to learn then the present," he said with that damn smile again, taking another step closer.

She panicked. And ran. Not a good combination when dealing with a predator.

She had hardly moved a yard when she found herself on her back. Fenrir was on top of her, giving her a lazy smile that made her want to piss herself.

"Tsk tsk tsk. And we were having such a good conversation before you tried to run."

"Get off me," Hermione whimpered, attempting to shove him off by pushing at his chest.

"None of that," he said while grabbing her hands and laying them by her head. "If you wanted me on top of you so badly you should have said so. I don't mind women on their backs, however," his voice dropped to a whisper. "I prefer them on their stomachs."

A grotesque image filled Hermione's mind. Down on all fours, his rough hands grasping her waist, her ass, running his hand down her back as he thrust into her. A mixture of arousal and disgust filled her mind. Her desire was two part – to know cerebrally and carnally the knowledge that this man could impart to her was forbidden. Forbidden, and attainable.

Like apples in the garden.

"When can you teach me?" she asked, pleased that her voice did not quiver.

The wolf smirked at her. "We will start now. It is two weeks until the full moon. That is when I shall expect payment."

It was a depraved grin that splashed across his face at the thought of taking the girl-wolf. He was going to make sure she knew appreciated his strength and speed and superiority when he was done with her.

It was there, on her back, that lessons began.

* * *

Over the next two weeks the elder werewolf taught the younger many things. She learned to see with more than her eyes. Vision was all encompassing of the senses. The sounds, the smells, the taste, the feel of the forest all mattered when lunging, growling, tearing, breaking, fighting, running, hunting and killing.

She learned not to control the inner demon, but to accept. Acceptance of a being that was a part of her. A being that, if she was to deny, would make her only half of what she was before.

It made her question if the wolf had been born the moment Fenrir had bitten her, or if it had been there, underneath her skin, dormant all along.

When she asked Fenrir his opinion he only flashed a cheeky grin.

The time passed quickly, and with it the deadline of payment.

When the moon shone brightly in the heavens Hermione prepared for her first real change. She started naked, wanting it to be symbolic. It was a rebirth for her. A shift in the paradigm.

When the moonbeams hit her she doubled over from the pain of it. Bones shift, hair grows, skin stretches and teeth elongate as yellow dyes the eyes. She wailed at first because it was agonizing. As it went on, however, it was a good pain, a rubbing a raw tooth pain. It felt good to hurt so much and to survive.

And then she was a wolf. But she wasn't a wolf. In her mind she was aware of a dark miasma that covered the mass of knowledge and reasoning that was her humanity with the desire to eat and fuck and run. Instead of fighting the feeling or bowing down to it she embraced it and within the encompassment of her arms she felt her two sides meld, becoming one and becoming strong.

As soon as she realized herself she saw the other wolf standing there, regarding her. He made a few noises at the back of his throat before rubbing his body against a nearby tree. Immediately Hermione was overcome with his musk, a rich and heady taste, and she salivated to taste it.

Without warning she ran towards him and jumped on him. The need to feel him was too great for her to ignore.

The male wolf seemed shock by her behavior and did not move away in time. He fell with a heavy thud to the ground. Quickly he remembered himself, and, tooth and nail, the two fought for dominance.

It was with surprise that the female managed to be on top. She smelled the fear of the male when she bit down roughly on his neck, enough to draw blood. The taste of it on her teeth raised her senses into a frenzy, and quickly she went into overload. Roughly she pushed her hind parts onto the space between his legs and thrust.

It seemed unwilling on the part of the male, but he rose to the occasion. It was with a triumphant howl that the female lowered herself down onto him, and with a violence that she thrust. Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognized a pain between her legs, and a stiffness, but it felt good as well. She couldn't show her pain to the male, and so instead she thrust all the harder. Sore tooth pain again, and she loved to touch it with her tongue.

Whenever the male made a move to try to switch their positions she bit him again and again until he was complacent under her.

At her completion she howled so hard her throat burned.

She moved off him in her own time and made growled at him. The female was hungry and the male would accompany her for the hunt. If he was good enough, she might even allow him to partake of some of her feast. If he was good enough.

It was grudgingly that the male followed the female.

* * *

When the morning came Fenrir awoke to a naked, brown haired girl laying atop him and the half-eaten carcass of a deer at his side. Grimly he recalled how the female had hardly allowed him any food, even though she had made him do most of the work in catching it. Almost as soon as she had started eating she had been on him again, demanding that he service her. She felt him move and jerked awake. Immediately she was overcome with a blush so hard her neck and breasts turned red.

Almost as red as the dried blood on his neck.

Fenrir made a strange face, and for a moment Hermione thought that he was about to do something terrible, like slash her throat, for the occurrences of last night.

Instead, he threw his head back and laughed.

"What's so funny?" she asked, her voice shaking. It was a strange contrast to her actions the night before.

"Nothing," he said, still erupting in a chuckle of two. "Nothing at all."

When she couldn't pry an answer from him she grabbed her clothes, dressed, and stalked off, leaving Fenrir alone in the forest.

Next month she'd give him something to laugh about, she thought with a wicked grin.


End file.
